Learn from Your Mistakes
by Detouredbe
Summary: Olivia's afterthoughts on the events of the film, focusing on the chase scene at the end, and what she now thinks she could have done to stop Ratigan from nearly killing Basil.


**This one-shot looks at what might be one of Olivia's afterthoughts on the ordeal she went through in the film, while on the train presumably back to Scotland with her father. She strikes me as an intelligent girl, but she's not mentally trained like Basil, and lacks experience. Well, now that she's had her first taste of it, she's realizing she's got to improve. Read on and see.**

**All characters used and mentioned belong to Eve Titus and Disney.**

All these past few days, the entire adventure had played over and over in her head, and now, on the train to her native Scotland, it was no different. Olivia Flaversham sat beside her father; he'd let her have the window side so that she could watch the scenery go by. Indeed, she did enjoy looking out at the meadows and moors, gloomy as they were during the rainy season, but her mind was preoccupied with her father's recent kidnapping, her introduction to Dr. Dawson and then to Basil of Baker Street, the horrible plan of regicide they'd uncovered, and thankfully prevented, and everything that had taken place in between.

She couldn't help but think that maybe she had been a burden on the famous detective and the doctor after all, when she'd insisted on joining them in the case. Basil had warned her it would be dangerous, although she had the sneaking suspicion that he was more concerned about her hampering his efforts. Olivia knew how grownups tended to think about children and their ways, and she always tried to act mature - though in times of excitement it wasn't hard to lose face - so she had promised to be quiet and remote the entire time, and stay invariably close to the gentlemen.

Well, she'd tried to keep that promise as best as she could, but nonetheless, mistakes had been made, and mishaps had occurred that, whether she should or not, she couldn't help but accept fault for. Things had been off to a bad start when Basil had, whilst trying to convince her to stay at 221 Baker Street, sat on his beloved violin, which she had knocked out of place moments before while grabbing her coat. Of course, it really was his fault for not watching where he was sitting, but she had been part of the violin's sad fate, and guilt was inevitable. Fortunately, she had, with help from Hiram, made up for that one by replacing the violin, as a "thank you" gift to Basil.

Her next goofup came at the human toyshop, while Basil and Dawson were searching, trying to find Fidget. First, she'd distracted them, and maybe given them away, by playing with that windup music band - she couldn't resist when she saw the toy, it reminded her of the bands that played at the carnival, and she'd always loved going there with her father - then, even when Dawson had told her to stay close to him, she had wandered off upon seeing an interesting-looking elephant toy which blew bubbles from its nose, and then seeing a cradle rocking back and forth. Olivia liked babies, and she naturally wanted to see the baby doll in the cradle. In keeping with her recent karma, however, it turned out that Fidget had hidden himself in that cradle, and he snatched and bagged her almost instantly. She couldn't have known at the time, but Dr. Dawson had told her later about the trouble he and Basil - especially Basil - had gone through to try and save her, and she only wished she had restrained her curiosity more.

Luckily, aside from Dawson getting pinned to a game board and Basil getting tangled up in a talking doll's string, the outcome for them hadn't been too bad that time. Which was good, because her conscience did not need anything impacting that final, big mistake she now realized she had made, the night of Queen Mousetoria's Diamond Jubilee.

Strange, she thought, how all those times in the last three days the events had rerun in her brain, she'd never noticed it before, but perhaps the more times you study something, the more features you observe that you might not have caught before. That was why it was important to read over your books multiple times when studying in school, right? Sadly, times of danger in real life don't have the same luxury of time that reading a schoolbook has. When fighting for survival - in this case not only for oneself, but for multiple people - she guessed one had to look at all aspects of the situation and calculate their best move. That was what Basil would have done, right? Probably what he did do, what's more. So why couldn't she?

When Ratigan and Fidget had kidnapped her the second time around, and made off with her in that dirigible, she had bravely stood up to Ratigan, confident that Basil would save her and put the nefarious old rat away. She even felt momentarily proud of the way she remained reasonably undaunted when he'd yelled at her to shut up - she'd been blown back to the other side of the ship-shaped aircraft, but she'd shown no outward signs of fear. Her levels of confidence increased when she saw that Basil, her father, and the good doctor had formed a makeshift aircraft of their own, and were in heavy pursuit of the two criminals and their captive. Even when the dirigible picked up speed, she kept her hopes up. She'd been momentarily afraid when Fidget, growing dangerously weary from pedalling them around so fast, suggested to Ratigan that they throw Olivia overboard to "lighten the load". After all, from the height they were at, who knew if she'd remain conscious upon landing in the Thames, which they were currently flying over? If she were unconscious, she could not swim, and therefore would surely drown. However, Ratigan, for whatever reason, snatched Fidget and delivered him that fate instead. "_Good luck to him, anyway_", she'd thought in spite of herself. Ratigan had then taken his lackey's place at the pedals, still trying to escape his archenemy and his cohorts. Basil had then jumped off of his aircraft onto Ratigan's, in an attempt to save Olivia. The problem was, with no one to steer the dirigble any longer, it could only go forward, and straight in their path was one of the faces of Big Ben.

Olivia had panicked, thinking that the fast-approaching time of crash would be her end for sure. Now, as she knelt on her train seat, arms on the sill of the window, head pillowed on her left arm, she gazed at the moist view outside, wishing she had not panicked at that moment.

If she could go back to that precise point in time and do it all again, she most certainly would have, upon seeing Big Ben getting progressively closer to them, gone to the steer of the ship and taken over. She knew next to nothing about steering ships, but it would have been better to try than to do nothing at all. If she had grabbed at whatever opportunity she could, like a smart person - like Basil - would do, they might not have crashed into the clock, and maybe, just maybe, that awful fight between Basil and the evil Professor might never have taken place.

"Olivia dear, is everything alright?" Hiram asked with fatherly concern, one hand resting on his only child's shoulder. She'd been so quiet and pensive the entire ride so far, and he worried that she might be brooding excessively over recent events. He understood that an ordeal such as theirs was very hard for a child her age to comprehend, especially so soon afterwards, and so he wanted to help her get over it any way he could. That was part of the reason he'd decided they should take a timeout in Scotland for the hols.

"Hmm? Oh, I was just thinking, Daddy," Olivia murmured, glancing over her shoulder at him. She turned her head again and resumed her earlier position, sighing depressedly.

"Anything you'd like to talk about, bairn?"

Olivia considered this. It might do good to get her father's insight on the matter; in the past whenever she took a problem of hers to him, he always did his best to help her with it. Even when his advice was not sufficient, the patience and love which flavoured it was always comforting. Sighing again, she turned around bodily and sat down, leaning against Hiram's side while he wrapped his arm around her, stroking the fur atop her head.

"Daddy, I've been thinking, what should I have done that night? When you and Basil of Baker Street and Dr. Dawson were coming to rescue me. When Ratigan threw his henchman overboard and drove his dirigible into Big Ben."

"I'm not sure I follow, dear."

"Daddy, if it'd been you on that ship, when you saw you were heading for the clock, would you have been scared? What would you have done?"

"Well Olivia, of course I would have been afraid - it's only natural in a situation like that. But seeing as no one was at the helm, I probably would have tried to steer it away from there."

"Exactly!" Olivia cried in despair, a little louder than she'd intended. "Daddy, why didn't I think of that then? You would have done it, Basil would have done it, Dr. Dawson would have done it, why couldn't I? If I had, maybe we wouldn't have crashed, and Ratigan wouldn't have chased us through the clock. Then, maybe… maybe he and Basil wouldn't have gotten into that big fight, and Basil would never have gotten so badly hurt! It's my fault he nearly died!" Tears had been running down Olivia's sweet little face since "maybe we wouldn't have crashed", and she broke down crying at this point.

"There there! Don't cry, my little bairn. It's alright," Hiram wiped her eyes with a handkerchief, then when she settled a little more, he soothed, "Well, darling, now I don't want you to get offended by this, but you are just a little girl, and you've never been under life or death circumstances before - I pray that you never will be again! You can't take the blame for what happened, when you knew no better."

"But Daddy, I -"

"Ah-ah-ah! I don't want you to blame yourself, Olivia. Besides," he added, trying to find some valid consolation without getting repetitive, "you don't know that Basil and the Professor wouldn't have gotten into a fight on the dirigible, even if you hadn't crashed. That would've been worse, for then you would probably have had no one pedalling the ship either, and you would have been trapped in the midst of the fight, instead of safe with the doctor and me."

Olivia took this in, and decided that he was right. "And," her father continued in a less serious tone, smiling, "Basil _did_ survive in the end, and he's well on the road to recovery now."

Olivia, who'd kept her body very tense this whole time, relaxed her muscles. It was amazing how lucky they all were. She'd had a lot to thank the good Lord for, in the ensuing nights. But still, the cold realization that she lacked finesse and mental maturity, and that this could at any time lead to her downfall, or someone else's, frightened and disturbed her.

"Yes, you're right, Daddy," she whispered, cuddling close to him, "but what if we _are_ ever in a life or death situation again? What if I make the same mistake then? What if I end up putting myself, or someone else, in even worse danger again?"

She wasn't going to let this go, he saw. "Well, dear, one important thing to remember about the mouse brain, is its ability to learn from its mistakes. The first step is acknowledging when you've made a mistake, and what it was, and what you could have done differently to avoid it, like you've been doing. Now, you just have to make note in your mind not to ever do that again."

"But what if I don't learn, Daddy? What if I'm not smart enough? Even that bat was better than me, when Ratigan threw him off the dirigible, he still tried to fly, even though he couldn't. I couldn't stand being dumber than him!"

"You're not, Olivia. Don't ever think you are. You're young, and you have plenty of time to learn. Look at Mr. Basil. Do you think he was always as observant as he is now?"

"Well…" Olivia had never really thought about it. The detective was smarter and more observant than anyone she'd ever met, but she'd never thought about whether he'd been like that, for instance, when he was her age.

When Olivia trailed off, Hiram answered for her. "I highly doubt that he was, but at some point in his life, he must have begun practicing. You've seen how he can look at any object or any person, and with one glance he can tell you more about it or them than you or I could figure out! I'm quite sure he must have started off by analyzing things much more slowly, and applying whatever knowledge he possessed at the time to it as best as possible. Then, over the years, with practice, he became much more knowledgable and much more skilful, until he was able to make these observations in a snap."

"Do you think I could ever be like that, Daddy?" Olivia smiled for the first time in hours, a smile of hope.

"I can't guaruntee it, but with practice, I'm sure you could," Hiram smiled back.

Olivia felt much better after this conversation. For much of the rest of the train ride, she and her father talked enthusiastically, sometimes about their adventure with the Great Mouse Detective, and sometimes about different things. All the time, however, Olivia kept in mind that if she wanted to be smart enough to recognize the best opportunities, not just in times of danger, but at any time, she would have to start practicing as soon as she could. What's more, if Basil had maybe started out closer to her level, and then gotten to where he was now, certainly she could do it as well. If she ever met up with the detective again, she would love to show him how observant and clever she'd become. Practicing. Watching people and things, and seeing what she could deduce about them. She couldn't wait to begin.


End file.
